hone your grading skills on this Lincoln (v2)

Guess the grade of this Lincoln cent.

It is graded by ANACS:






Thanks in advance for playing....Mike

 

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I'm going to say 63. Not sure what they say about the color though, it's red-brown most likely.

 

I would agree on the MS63RB. Not a bad looking coin though just a bit nicked up.

 

MS-64 I think the coin was slabbed as a Red ,and the color has appeared after the fact.

Rick

 

MS63RB just to be safe....I almost put MS64RB because of the pretty toning on the back

Speedy

 

I think that reverse toning was probably there before hand and that they slabbed it MS63 RB.

 

MS63RB

Grade my wheatie

 

Pretty close to MS, but it's a AU-58?

B

 

Leadfoot,

How do you get those amazing pictures of your coins? They're fabulous! What kind of setup do you use?

 

Tcore,

Thank you for the kind words.

I use a Nikon D100 and a Nikon 70-200VR lens with a Canon 500D closeup lens -- please be advised this is an expensive setup ($4k), but there are cheaper alternatives that will take virtually as good of photos (Nikon D50 w/Tamron 90mm Macro, at around $1.5k, for instance). For lights, I use GE Reveal bulbs. Here are a few more tips:

#1 -- Shoot RAW (.NEF), use Nikon Capture then Photoshop in post processing.
#2 -- Use a good tripod (or copy stand) and a remote shutter release.
#3 -- Use a long lens (I use 70-200, generally at 200mm or so) and make the coin picture as large as possible.
#4 -- Use custom white balance -- this removes any color cast from the photo and makes the colors extremely accurate.
#5 -- Lighting placement and proper exposure are key.
#6 -- Lots of practice.

Have fun...Mike

 

LOL....leadfoot you should check out www.shutterfreaks.com ....if you haven't already. Its a photo forum much like cointalk. Judging by the set up you have, you'd love it.

Great picts of the coin. Thanks for helping us all hone our grading skills

 

Leadfoot, thanks for the insight.

4k huh? whistle... :whistle: That's not cheap.

I know that lots of your coins are in slabs or things like that. Do you use photoshop to put the black circular masks around the coins to mask out the parts of the photos that you don't want us to see?

Very nice though. I've never seen such nice, crystal clear pictures of coins.

 

Thanks for the kind words and suggested website. I'll check it out. FWIW, I learned most of what I know about photography from www.dpreview.com, through extensive reading on the subject, and most of all through trial and error. I've been into digital photography since late 2001...Mike

 

Again, thanks for the kind words.

To answer your question directly, yes, I use Photoshop to put the black areas around the coin.

In a bit more detail, I use Nikon Capture for:

a) Exposure compensation (usually a bad sign if I need to do this)
b) color /contrast changes (rarely needed)
c) translation of RAW to TIFF then sending to Photoshop for final retouching.

I use Photoshop (actually Photoshop Elements, its cheaper cousin) to:

a) remove the slab from the background
b) make the coin round again (skew) if the picture was taken at an angle (as my avatar was).
c) resize the photo

Take care...Mike

 

So what's the grade? I'm dying to know : )

 

I like that coin. Probably a MS63. Is the reverse actually darker than the obverse? By the way nice photos. Actually I use several different cameras for coin photos and most are only a few hundred or less. I go to lots of camera shows where cameras, lenses, tripods, etc are dirt cheap. In fact One camera dealer I know just gave me two digital cameras free. I also use a program called photoworks, a cheap take off on photoshop. Costs was about $15.

 

And you would be correct in doing so.

ANACS graded it 64 RB. Well done GDJMSP, and thanks to the rest of you for playing!!!...Mike